Bingo players in Jackson Township feel cheated after snafu

You sit down to play. There's $500 on the line because a bonus round has just come up.

In lightning-quick succession, you get four of the five numbers you need for bingo.

Just one more number to win. You just keep waiting for that one ball.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Your ball never comes up.

You sense something is wrong — the odds, after all, are hugely in your favor; you got the first four numbers in, like, a couple of minutes.

Someone else wins the round, so you ask the caller to show you the ball you needed in the bingo machine to make sure it's there.

Turns out, the ball's not there. The ball you needed was mistakenly never added to the machine.

Would you feel cheated?

Laura Guccio and Dawn Powers certainly did.

The two Saylorsburg residents found themselves in that exact scenario Tuesday night, when they played at the Jackson Township Volunteer Fire Company fire hall.

The good friends, who often play bingo together and split their winnings, were inches away from winning $500 in the bingo bonus round but never achieved victory because, well, victory for them in that round simply was impossible.

Members of the fire company who run the bingo nights, after checking the bingo machine thoroughly for the ball and coming up empty, said they were sorry.

They also said that nothing fraudulent was going on, that it was just a case of exceptionally bad luck and there was really nothing more they could do.

Just tough luck, ya know.

But such an answer is not good enough for Guccio and Powers, who say they believe that they should have been compensated and also feel that the entire outcome was unfair.

"It's just absolutely wrong, the whole thing is wrong, and we really feel like we were cheated," said Guccio, who says she has been playing bingo locally for almost 30 years and has never had this happen to her before.

She and Powers think that the bingo administrators at the firehouse should have split the $500 jackpot among her, Powers and the person who ultimately — after much time had elapsed and many more numbers were called — won the round.

The two women say they would even settle for a refund of $240, the amount of money they spent on bingo cards that night.

But Kenneth Strausser, a fireman with Jackson Township Volunteer Fire Company who is in charge of the fire department's bingo night, said he doesn't think the women should be compensated so extravagantly.

"We were not trying to rip anyone off. This wasn't deliberate," said Strausser, who added that the ball, G-49, may be stuck somewhere deep in the machine but also acknowledged that the game's caller was relatively new and may not have ever put the ball in the machine in the first place.

Strausser, a volunteer fireman for 40 years, was at the game Tuesday and offered to give the ladies $20 each for their trouble, but they refused.

Guccio told Strausser that she and Powers would report the incident to the Pennsylvania Gaming Commission.

Strausser told them: "Go ahead, but if you do, do us all a favor and don't come back to this bingo again."

But the Gaming Commission may not have even been able to help.

For one, it's the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue that handles many disputes surrounding gaming money. In addition to that, fire hall bingo is considered a "small game of chance" and thus isn't under the department's purview, said spokeswoman Maia Warren.

Warren said that small games of chance are regulated through the district attorney's office in the area. Which means that if Guccio and Powers want to try to get some sort of recourse, they're going to have to call the cops.

Both women say they wouldn't be against taking such a measure.

Strausser, for his part, says that the offer of $20 each for their trouble still stands. But again, Guccio says that's just not good enough.

"If the ball had gotten stuck," Guccio said, "we would have chalked it up to bad luck and forgotten the whole thing. But it was never even in there."

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